Tamed Monster - Chapter 85

For the first time in a whole day after defeating the head monster, they finally had a meal.

She hadn’t eaten for days, so even the freshwater fish—something she’d never touch at home—tasted delicious when roasted quickly over a fire.

Her husband started to eat the fish raw, but when Sylvia recoiled in horror and told him to stop, he reluctantly set it aside and watched her cook instead.

‘Sometimes, eating like this is a treat.’

He said defensively, but Sylvia didn’t even respond. By now, ignoring or dismissing her husband had become second nature to her—she was this cold only because he deserved it.

After a short meal with him looking glum, they walked on through the swamp until dusk.

‘When will I ever get home?’

Though she didn’t actually hate the swamp as much as she thought, Sylvia found herself missing home from time to time. It wasn’t even as if her house was filled with fond memories; the manor had always felt more like a prison.

But now, curiously, she found herself longing for it. As evening fell, she noticed a cave she hadn’t seen when they entered the swamp, and they decided to spend the night there.

“Why is there a cave in the middle of the swamp?”

Swamps are usually low-lying wetlands with standing water, so it’s rare for a cave to form naturally in such a place.

But the Blavat Swamp was unusual—small hills dotted the area here and there, which made it possible for little caves like this to exist.

“Well, sometimes strange things just happen.”

Kuinan boasted, acting like he was showing her the cave for the first time—even though he’d often used it for naps in his true form.

It was actually Kuinan who found the cave; Sylvia would have passed right by without noticing it. Watching his smug, self-satisfied grin, she mentally revised her estimate of his maturity level—down from a seven-year-old to a five-year-old.

Humming to himself, he tossed their bags to the ground with a thud.

Thud.

The stench from a severed arm nearby made Sylvia wrinkle her nose, and she snapped at him to move it farther away.

But Kuinan, for some reason, ignored her request.

“If I lose it, it’ll be a problem.”

He insisted that the rotting blue monster arm was a trophy he needed to bring back to the Emperor as proof.

For now, that meant keeping it close by while he got on with his main ‘task’—to flirt with Sylvia. He was making his interest clear.

No, more than an interest…. His gaze was flirtatious. He’d been saying for a while now how much he liked her, but these days he was looking at her with genuine love in his eyes.

“I want to mate with you.”

Oddly enough, Sylvia wasn’t even surprised.

He had that exact look and tone, and it was just like him to use a word like ‘mate’ instead of a normal expression, so she wasn’t surprised anymore.

She turned him down, as diplomatically as she could.

“I just want to go home as soon as possible.”

All she wanted was a hot bubble bath to scrub herself clean, to focus on her duties as a Duchess—things she’d never cared about before—just to forget these nightmare days in the swamp.

She wanted to erase the image of her husband’s blank face as he hacked off that arm. She just wanted things to go back to the way they used to be.

“Hmm…If I promise to make it quick?”

“Still no. Aren’t you disgusted? Keeping that rotten hunk of meat so close by?”

“It’s not rotten yet. Though I guess it will be soon.”

“That’s not the point… Look, I’m not doing it. Take care of yourself or just hold it in.”

Their exchange was blunt, more like that of an old married couple than newlyweds. Sylvia didn’t even notice she was bantering with him.

Lancart sulked, grumbling, but after a while, realized how much closer they’d become and he grinned as if to show her.

“…Why are you smiling?”

“Because you’re cute. Ugh, I really want you though. Are you sure? This place is actually really safe, you know. Most swamp monsters avoid caves.”

He started explaining some obscure monster trivia again, and Sylvia just raised an eyebrow. So her husband knows everything about swamp creatures, right. But the last time, he’d gotten thrashed by one.

Wait a second—how did he manage to beat the head monster?

And he’d done it alone, with nothing but a dagger in hand. As her husband started humming provocatively in her ear, Sylvia tried to piece together a logical explanation for it.

Maybe he just got unlucky last time and ran into a whole pack of aggressive monsters. After all, monsters were said to change behavior depending on the weather or the phases of the moon.